Book 14 Nov 2006 08:27 am
Alexandria Link
At long last, a non-fantasy book! The Alexandria Link is Steve Berry’s newest book in his Cotton Malone series. This is my first book by Berry and it makes me sad I have not read his stuff in order. Side note, his first book is The Amber Room. That said, The Alexandria Link is fabulous. It does make references to his previous adventures, which, again, I have not read. In the first twenty minutes of reading his book, I whizzed through over thirty pages. It just sucks you in. It reads similar to Dan Brown’s stuff, in that you want to sit and read it and ignore everyone and every thing, but this book has the excitement of dealing with the lost library of Alexandria.
From the Kirkus reviews on the Barnes and Noble site.
European billionaires, Israelis, Saudis and Americans shoot it out in an international search for ancient manuscripts that could drastically alter the map of the Middle East. Having rested up from their great labors, the cast of The Templar Legacy (2006) faces new perils as they are thrown headlong into yet another there’s-been-a-huge-misunderstanding religious mystery. The ceaseless action begins with the kidnapping of the teenage son of former American secret-agent-turned-bookseller Cotton Malone, whose understandably panicked ex-wife has jetted to Copenhagen, where he now lives. There is the usual warning to keep the police out of it, but Malone has enough sense to enlist the help of his elderly but capable billionaire pal Henrik Thorvaldsen after shadowy evil-doers torch the bookstore as a warning. The kidnapper is Dominick Sabre, murderous right-hand man of elderly but malevolent billionaire Alfred Hermann, current big cheese in the Order of the Golden Fleece, a cabal of super-rich European moguls with a taste for world-scenario management. Thorvaldsen, a Jew, is also in the Order, giving him access to Hermann’s plotting, which has to do with the possibility that much of the great library at Alexandria was shifted offsite before its destruction. Amid the ancient papyri and scrolls may be some early Old Testaments that point to serious geographic misunderstandings over the millennia, mistakes that would undermine the claims of the world’s three monotheistic religions. Given a deadline-or the kid dies-to find his old pal George Haddad, who holds the clues to the location of the library, Malone jets to London, ex-wife in tow, in time to see Haddad assassinated, which forces him into anuneasy alliance with the treacherous Sabre. In the U.S., meanwhile, Malone’s former boss uncovers involvement at the Highest Level. The president’s life is in danger. Fast action and wild plotting largely mask lackluster prose in Berry’s latest what-if thriller.
Not really… the best of reviews, but still, it is a good time and I cannot wait to read further.
The point of this post is not the actual book itself however. It is the promotional tools used for it. I have taken a picture of my advance (which incidentally will not be the final cover I don’t think) and with the promo scroll.
It is a scroll that is on the softest fabric/paper and includes a tiny blurb on the book as well as the release date (which is wrong). It is just such an interesting idea, especially since “back in the day,” scrolls were used during the time of the Library of Alexandria.
If you like authors like Dan Brown, I think you will like Steve Berry. It really is fast paced, but still, has a factual base. Please keep in mind, it IS fiction however. The Library of Alexandria did burn down and there is not one man out there who holds the key to all of its information.
Release date is either February 6, 2007 OR January 30, 2007. Either way, start looking at the end of January!
Tags: alexandria, alexandria link, amber room, berry, books, cotton malone, dan brown, fiction, library, library of alexandria, promotions, romanov prophecy, scrolls, steve berry, templar legacy, third secret
on 07 Feb 2007 at 3:02 pm 1.Book Embargo » Steve Berry: part duex said …
[...] I’m sure you all remember my post on Steve Berry’s new hardcover, Alexandria Link. They gave out a fun scroll and did online book giveaways. Anyways, the point of this is that we recieved a new hardcover as a reader’s copy for the store (even though we had recieved an advance), SIGNED by Steve Berry! [...]